I cannot believe that we have not posted any Christmas pictures. I guess we’ve been too busy playing with all of our new goodies and getting back into the swing of things.
Okay, not yet – but I hope to be tomorrow morning. A couple of months ago I picked up a couple of hard shell sea kayaks from the base MWR auction and have been dying to try them out ever since. Well, today I have the kayak loaded up on the car, have my wetsuit and other cold weather kayaking gear ready (though with today being 74 degrees, not sure I really need it), and am all ready to hit the water bright and early in the morning. I’m pretty sure with tonight being New Year’s Eve I will have the water all to myself. Translation – since this is the first time I am trying out the sit-inside kayaks, I might end up in the water a few times trying to get in. So tomorrow is a good day to be without witnesses!
* Oh – and it just wouldn’t be Greece without a picture of one of our neighbor’s goats watching me load up the kayak!
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This week has been pretty much rainy every day. Guess the summer is definitely gone and fall is here. So now that it is a Saturday and you can’t really go out to play, what do you do? Well, if you’ve got a house full of boys, you build a fort, that’s what! Below is today’s attempt at the giant fort, taking up most of the living room; which of course leaves enough room for our trust dog sidekick, Annie! Oh, and BTW – HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
Wedding Weekend in St. Louis
I traveled to St. Louis for Sam and Laura’s wedding. It’s still a little weird to think that my little brother is married. All in all, the weekend turned out to be quite nice.
I met my parents at the St. Louis airport Thursday night. They had flown in just a couple of hours ahead of me. Well, they were supposed to be ahead by a couple of hours. Turns out that their flight arrived early and my flight was delayed by at least an hour. So, I arrived several hours after them. Luckily, I had given them the information for the car rental and they were able to secure the car before the desk closed. I saw dad right where I was expecting to grab my checked-in bag. Actually, mom, dad and Sam were all waiting for me. Sam had taken the metro to the airport to help us navigate to our hotel. That turned out to be a relief.
Once at the hotel, we were introduced to Laura and her parents, Andy and Sandy. My goodness Laura is tall. Looks like I will continue to be the midget of the family. Hey, I’m really average height!
We had a great day today hanging out at the old harbor in Chania. I had heard that the RAF Red Arrows were going to be in town flying as part of the weekend’s Battle of Crete festivities. So, I got the crew up early this morning so we could head downtown and make sure to find a place to park. We wandered around the harbor for about an hour before the show started, but it is always so beautiful down there – and really, even more so in the morning when it is a LOT less crowded. After the show, we wandered some of the old streets of Chania – definitely the kind of thing you picture when you think of Greece. Well, enjoy the photos!
Following where I left off at the first post, we finished up at the museum and headed back to the hotel to wait for Harry to arrive. Once he got in (after going through the exact same fiasco we did with the train!), we walked up the street and hopped on the metro headed towards the Parthenon. Now, generally when people think of Greece, they either think of one of two things – the island of Santorini with it’s white washed buildings with blue roofs and doors (hopefully we’ll get there this summer) or they think of the Parthenon. After all, the Parthenon is something most, if not all of us learned a little about in school. So getting back to our adventure, it was pretty exciting to be on a metro in Athens heading down to the Parthenon!
A couple of weeks ago, we took a 4 day trip to the Greek mainland with our friends Harry and Kristie Hansen. On Friday morning, Ginger, the boys and I flew up to Athens and hopped on a train to take us downtown to our hotel. The lady at the ticket counter explained something about getting off at one point and transferring to another train. I wasn’t too sure of what she said (very thick accent), but we headed off to the platform anyways.
After about 8 stops, I just knew that the next stop was going to be the one we needed to get off at and transfer trains. So, the stop comes up and… we keep on going. The train doesn’t stop because the stop I wanted to get off at was currently being built. Oh well – off to the next stop! We get off at the next stop and waited for about 30 minutes for the next train to come in on the other side and hoping that was the train we needed to get on, we hopped aboard. We knew we needed to get to the “Larissa Station”, but that was about it. The train went deeper and deeper into Athens and we really had no idea if we were on the right train or not, but since none of us was interested in hopping off a moving train, we stayed on and enjoyed the ride. When the train finally stopped, we looked out at the train station and didn’t see any signs other than “Athens”. We decided it was a good time to get off and get our bearings.
We crossed the tracks and went into the train station. After looking around a little bit, I finally found a sign for Information and quickly headed in that direction. I asked the guy how to get to the Larissa Station and he gave me a strange look and said I was standing in it. Okay, so I definitely felt like the dumb tourist, but we were where we wanted to be so I got over that quickly.
Can you guess what time it is here in Crete? That’s right – time to hit the beach…
and then head home for a BBQ…
Oh, this is going to be a beautiful summer!
And it all happened right here on the beautiful island of Crete. A couple of weeks ago, some friends of ours were taking out the trash (in the rain no less!) when they heard a noise coming from under some palm fronds by the dumpster. They looked around and found 2 baby puppies, still with their umbilical cords and wet from birth. Unfortunately, newborn puppies are often left by dumpsters here, but that’s another story… Fortunately, for these two cuties, someone rescued them!
Last week at our Wednesday night church service, they brought the puppies in with them looking for a sucker, uh… I mean volunteer, to take the puppies from them until they were big enough to give to the folks that wanted them. Our friends, in the meantime, were heading back to the states and the husband works all day so couldn’t be around to feed the puppies all day. So, you can see where this story is heading, right?
The next night, we picked up the puppies and brought them home with us. That’s when our little adventure began! I get the night shift with the pups, usually feeding them around 9 and 12 (and sometimes 3 if they don’t sleep through), then the early morning shift, and Ginger gets the day shift. The first morning I was up with them, I was feeding the puppies just like I had done the night before. I fed the little one (who cries the loudest and the longest) first, then fed the bigger girl. Tristan came in the room just after I had finished feeding her. It was then that I realized the puppy was not moving and just didn’t look right. I picked her up and she was completely limp – no breathing, no little puppy heartbeat, NOTHING!
Great, I have the puppies for one day and I kill one! I couldn’t let that happen without a fight – especially with Tristan sitting there in front of me, starting to look a little teary eyed. I grabbed the little puppy, pushed a few times on her chest, then stuck my mouth over her mouth and nose and gave her some air. After a few repetitions of this, she started to spit up some milk – then more and more milk. But, thanks to God granting me a miracle, she started breathing again and moving around. WHEW!!! Fortunately, she has been fine ever since!
Afterward, I did some research on the Internet and found out that I had probably fed her too much – I think the extra went into her lungs. I was under the impression that they would be like people babies and quit eating when they were full. Guess not! I won’t be making that mistake again. And Joanne, if you’re reading this – the girls are fine… now!
Last Sunday, we rushed out of church and headed down the National Highway here in Crete on our way to Rethymno. Every year the largest Carnival parade on the island is held in this town. The drive was crazy as usual – the norm on the National Highway here – but we made it without damage. They had a roadblock for all the parade goers, so that you parked outside of the city and rode the bus into the center of town (free of charge).
The parade was pretty cool, but definitely different from parades in the states. Here, you find a lot of the paraders (is that what you call them?) smoking and drinking while marching along. One float in particular took the cake. It was a large boat, with a smaller boat pulling it. The smaller boat had a nice little wetbar built in along the side that had quite a few partakers. The large boat had a covered deck at the top. In the deck sat a woman smoking away, surrounded by little kids. Hmmm… Hasn’t anybody heard about the dangers of second hand smoke? It actually reminded me of when I went to the local hospital here to donate blood and saw quite a few of the doctors with cigarettes in their pockets.
Ahhh, I digress. Anyways, the parade was good, but definitely on the long side. So we headed down towards the harbor to get some good grub. They have a cool Venetian fortress here as well as a beautiful lighthouse. The food was good, the drive home just as uneventful (but not any less crazy).
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